Chinese Film Bags Golden Peacock Award at IFFI

Chinese film ‘The Old Barber’, directed by Hasi Chaolu, won the Golden Peacock Award at the 37th International Film Festival Of India (IFFI) here today.

The 105-minute film, produced by Li Shuihe, is a story about the pure art of the barbers in Beijing.

The top award consists of a citation and a cash prize of Rs ten lakh.

The Silver Peacock Award and a cash prize of Rs five lakh went to An Kung-Lee of South Korea as the Most Promising Director for her film "A Short Life.

The Special Jury Award, comprising a Silver Peacock and Rs five lakh in cash, went to Bangladeshi director Abu Sayeed’s "Nirontor" which is also the country’s official entry to the Academy Awards in the Foreign Language category this year.

The Chinese film outwitted ten other movies in the competition section which had entries from Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Germany, China, India, Iran, Israel, South Korea and Taiwan.

The Golden Peacock and other awards were presented at the concluding function of IFFI at Kala Academy here in the presence of Goa Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane, Information and Broadcasting Secretary S K Arora and actress-turned film maker Aparna Sen.

The competition section which was meant for films from Asia, Africa and Latin America, had no single entry from the African continent.

Incidently, the whole festival too had no entries from African continent. The two Indian entries, "Sringaram" (Tamil) and "Sonam (The Fortunate One)," the first film in Arunachli dialect Monpa, failed to get an award.

Closing film "Babel ", directed by Mexico’s Alejandro Gonjalez Inarittu and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, drew the curtains on the end of the ten-day long festival held at two venues–Kala Academy and INOX Multiplex on the banks of Mandovi river.